A former holder of that post brought in an immigration law that would have prevented his father entering the UK as a refugee before the war. Another minister at the time was also the son of a refugee. As a cynic, I suspect that the first rule of government is "Don't do as I do; do as I say." Did somebody mention Partygate?

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

I went to book a holiday for 2023 today and travel agent (fortunately it seems) mentioned if I knew about ETIAS - which i didn't - but once he explained the gist of it it set alarm bells ringing as I was on the SOR for 10 yrs and a frequent traveller abroad which caused me  a lot of stress.and I felt so liberated once I could stop registering travel plans at Police stations and could go through borders without interrogations. Now depressingly i've ended up back at Unlock Forum after several years of freedom of movement trying to find out exactly what the ETIAS rules will be - but can't find a definitive answer.

The travel agent today mentioned 10 yrs period general declaration and 15 for terrorism offences but going through this thread it looks like it's actually 15 and 25 respectively?. Once my time on the SOR finished I got rid of all documentation to do with my case so don't know exactly when my conviction was but I think sometime in 2009 which would catch me if the basic time period is 15 yrs. I also got a motoring conviction a few years back when instead of accepting a fixed penalty notice I disputed the case and lost and ignorant that this gave me a criminal conviction, I'm not sure what effect that will have on ETIAS. Also what about if you have to transit in an EU country, do you need ETIAS for that?

So I'm going to maximise my travel this year now but annoyed and frustrated the details of what actually will be the rules and when application can be made don't seem available anywhere unless someone can provide a link

I think we will just have to wait and see what happens next year when people start applying. 
The guidance is not clear. IMHO a lot of it will be dealt with manually by each EU country and that is th worrying aspect. 
My hope was that upon declaring a conviction the application process would scan through the relevant databases and if these were clear then the etias would be approved however upon reading the guidance I think that even if the checks are clear, the application will still go through a manual process with the etias department in the relevant country. So basically even if they cannot check the pnc, upon declaring a conviction, the application will land on someone's desk for manual processing. 

I can't see where to ask this elsewhere in the forum but I pleaded guilty on date X and sentenced 6 weeks later on date Y. For the purpose of the 15 year ETIAS threshold which is the relevant date ie which counts as the date of conviction - X or Y? I'm going to be scuppered for at least a year anyway but would like to think i'll be able to plan travel to EU countries again someday post May 2023. This (15 year rule)  has come as a real shock to me today, I already know I'll have to be economical with the truth to people in my rehabilitated new life who will wonder why I'm not going to Europe as often as I do now, plus all the bad memories of court, police, being shunned etc have come flooding back.

The information is about convictions, so I'd say the date of conviction. By the time you were sentenced, you'd already had a conviction for 6 weeks.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

Because of the huge volume of applications that ETIAS will be processing, I doubt that every one will be dealt with manually. 
The ones that will be, are the ones where it returns a hit on one of the databases and the ones where somebody declares a conviction.

Bear in mind that one of the databases might well have any previous travel records for the Schengen Zone. So, if you had travelled previously while on the SOR, that might generate a hit. If you didn't travel to the EU while you were on the SOR, you should be fine.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

the key point is if someone declares a conviction is this passed on to the local etias team anyway or just if there is a hit on the databases?
what i am trying to say is one may be ok with the databases but not ok with a bureocrat looking at a declared conviction so you pass the autmoatic tests but fail on the human test which whatever the guidelines will be will be subjective to an extent...

I couldn't see it mentioned in this thread before and sorry if I'm repeating info but this site suggests there might be a 6 month period of grace when ETIAS starts

https://www.etiasvisa.com/etias-news/how-will-the-etias-system-work

I think how it will work is undetermined and a real mess. From the ETAIS site:

If the imprisonment is considered ‘spent’ then the traveller does not even need to declare the conviction, and it cannot be used against them even if immigration officials are aware of the offense.

Going to Europe with a Criminal Record: Requirements & ETIAS (etiasvisa.com)

This is probably something that Unlock could maybe find out what the rules will be and add an advice page to the site.